Nursery School Curriculum

Do you want your child to be inspired?

It’s well known that children learn best when they are having fun and are confident in their environment and with their peers. At Active Learning Childcare, we promote the development of the all round child and introduce them to a broad, exciting programme of learning through some of the best recognized forms of teaching and through our truly innovative studio programme which focuses on art, music and performing arts, language, literacy, science, IT and sports.

With our dedicated team of specialist teachers in the studios who are supernumerary to all our wonderful nursery mentors, children are nurtured and looked after as unique and individual children, ensuring that we bring out the best in each and every one, and help them to discover and maximize the potential of their talents while also developing confidence in areas that they might find more tricky. We want them to be confident, independent and inquisitive in their learning and their games.

Alongside all of that, we teach children all about the world around them and in different nurseries teach various languages which reflect the needs of the area. Currently, across our schools, we teach French, Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin !! Sport and outdoor life is also a crucial element to us and plays a central role in much of what we do. Artists in residence and visiting musicians create a hive of creativity and colour in the daily lives of the children who come to school here.

Our educational results have been outstanding.

But most importantly, at Active Learning Nurseries, it is all about helping children develop healthy minds and bodies. Our children are healthy children in every way, and we hope to inspire and motivate them to enjoy a natural love of discovery and learning whilst looking after themselves positively in every way to become healthy teenagers and eventually young adults.

Why are we different?

Active Learning Nurseries operate a unique studio programme which integrates perfectly into the requirements of the EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage) curriculum and exceeds it. Children all start their day in a dedicated home room for registration and some home room based activities. They then begin the studio day where they choose different activities from within the Active Studios. This might be within Performing Arts, Music, Dance, Science, Technology, Art, or Active Sports. Often there is a common theme running within the nursery so that activities in all studios are related. For example, during the Olympics, within the Art Studio, children made Olympic torches and Olympic rings, in Active Sports, they tried out all sorts of athletic events, in Science Studios they were taught how our bodies work, in the Music Studio they learned the National Anthem, and in our world understanding, about all the different countries and flags of the world. Extracurricular trips have of course involved going to watch the official Olympic torch relay, and our own multi sports Olympic day where 4 of our schools got together for a full half day event.

The children move from studio to studio enjoying a broad and exciting range of activities on offer, some taught by permanent teaching staff and others by visiting specialists. All of our studio activities are designed to incorporate the Early Years goals and objectives but in a way that makes learning just great fun.

At varying points during the day, children will also be in the nursery school room for language, literacy and numbers and also meet up again in their home rooms for registration, discussion of activities, some snack times, resting or playing with friends.

Each child has a personal mentor who moves with them around the studios and who is responsible for ensuring that each child completes all parts of the curriculum, monitors closely their development and progress, and decides with the child, which activities they will pursue each month based on their individual needs and interests. They are also responsible for pastoral care and, along with the nursery principal, are the main point of contact for parents.